Why is it so important to fill your child's head with beautiful things? Because to contemplate beauty is to imitate beauty.

For example, as soon as you start talking about good posture, everyone in the room starts shifting and adjusting themselves. They immediately think of a standard for posture, comparing their own posture to that standard, then they attempt to adjust to that standard.

Attacks on beauty are sinister ways to subvert this process. Any attack on beauty is an attack on the good and an elevation of evil.

No culture on earth has ever treated men and women equally.

And no culture on earth ever will.

Here are 4 patterns every culture has in common when defining different roles for men and women, no matter how varied or diverse its practices.

Thread 🧵 1. Sexual division of labor.

Every culture divides tasks between men and women. These tasks can change from culture to culture (though there is remarkable consistency), but the division is always there.

The types of tasks men perform across cultures are similar. Same for women

Boys need to be saturated with stories of adventure and bravery. They learn to fight evil by example, and great stories train them to properly recognize evil.

Give them these 43 books instead of Captain Underpants or Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

1. Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry 2. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
3. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
4. My Side of the Mountain by Jean George
5. Penrod by Booth Tarkington
6. Penrod and Sam by Booth Tarkington
7. Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales

9 characteristics of strong, resilient families.

1. The table is the central place of their fellowship together.

Not the TV. Not the car. Not the bleachers at a sports game.

The table. They regularly sit down and eat dinner together at least 5 times per week. 2. The family has a mission beyond rest and entertainment.

Everyone, husband, wife, and children, plays their part in this mission. Homeschooling, a small business, radical hospitality, farming, charity, whatever.

10 warning signs to teach your daughter if she's looking to get married.

1. He spends most of his free time playing video games or watching TV.

If these are his main hobbies, then most of his time will be spent searching for entertainment. A dull, unfulfilling life. 2. He agrees with everything you say.

He's a pushover, a people-pleaser, and afraid of conflict. He will not be the leader in the relationship, and so he will not make a good husband.

See if he has his own opinions and stands his ground to defend them.

C.S. Lewis once said that it is likely that children will meet cruel enemies, so let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.

Yet modern entertainment seeks to kill the heroic impulse in boys.

Let's look at one property. Maybe THE property.

Star Wars. Star Wars offered patterns of heroism for boys everywhere to mimic. Who hasn't swung a toy sword while making lightsaber sounds with his mouth?

Yet the sequel trilogy turned its back on this power and bowed down to another idol.

9 warning signs to teach your son as he searches for a wife.

1. Cropped hair with outrageous colors (purple, green, blue, etc.)

This can highlight tendencies of rebelliousness and immodesty. Is she doing it to shock her mother or grandmother? 2. Her parents are divorced, and she has no idea why.

Divorced parents are too common, so you might not be able to avoid it. But how does she feel about it? What has she learned?

If she treats it as a trivial thing, avoid.

Men who display big emotions in public are selfish.

No, real men do not cry in public, barring certain situations like funerals. And they definitely don't brag about crying in public.

Showing emotions whenever it's convenient is the realm of children and the immature.

🧵 A man's life is not about his own personal fulfillment.

A man who is trying to be masculine has taken on responsibility for other people and his actions must take those people into account.

Showing emotion is never simply “showing emotion.”

King David learned this lesson.

If you have a bad relationship with your father, you need to take steps to repair it.

Even if he's already dead.

And I'm going to show you the first step you need to take.

It's simple but will feel impossible at first. 👇 Write a letter to him that outlines everything you respect about him. Nothing more. Nothing less.

You don't ask for anything. You don't demand anything. You don't accuse him of anything.

Just write what you respect about him.

Then, mail him the letter.

The revolt against spanking is another symptom of our over-sentimentality.

But a single spanking can save hours of lectures, guilt trips, and emotional manipulation. You'll be able to delight in your children again.

Here's how to spank properly.

THREAD 1. Spank in the context of love.

Spanking is like writing a check. You always have the authority to do so, but you need enough in the bank to cover it. Fill the account with lots of positive attention.

Spanking should not be the only time you pay attention to your children.

The difference between a good father and a *great* father can be a thin line, hard to discern.

Here are 12 proverbs to help.

1. Good fathers are always there for their kids.

Great fathers make themselves expendable. 2. Good fathers provide their kids with everything money can buy.

Great fathers provide their kids with everything money *can't* buy.

Appreciating beauty is one path toward humility.

If you can be glad something exists, regardless of who made it or how it got there, you are on your way to forgetting yourself.

Desiring to make something ugly or denigrating beauty is a sign of proud foolishness. Hating beauty is the great weakness of our enemies. They seeth and froth at the mouth whenever someone who disagrees with them makes something beautiful.

Part of it is envy, since that drives 80% of their actions.

But they also feel personal betrayal.

"Consent" is a dumb thing to enshrine as the prime moral standard, especially with kids. Yet so many people are proud of not enforcing their authority as parents.

Insanity.

The kid already didn't consent to be born, nor did he consent to be in your family. You didn't consult the newborn about his/her name or about the color of their room or clothes.

You don't don't ask them if it's ok to change their diaper (though some sickos advocate for this)

No child is autonomous.

None of us are.

Here's a secret of parenting that many people don't want you to know about.

You can say "Because I said so" to your children.

"Because I am your father" is a good reason for kids to obey, and they should absolutely accept it, and you shouldn't feel guilty for saying it.

But... You don’t want your children to blindly accept authority.

You don’t want to raise peons.

You don’t want to come across as wielding arbitrary authority.

But that's the lie.

Fatherhood is not arbitrary authority. It is God-given authority.

If you could instantly make your wife more beautiful overnight, would you do it?

A caveat: nothing about her appearance changes, but you will perceive her differently.

The secret? Stop watching so much modern entertainment.

It presents a false concept of what beauty is supposed to be and your wife will never measure up. Stop watching modern entertainment and your wife will become more attractive.

Why is this?

If you instill this virtue in your son, he is guaranteed to have success in life.

What is this virtue? Striving for excellence.

It will pay dividends for literally every facet of life.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might..."

How do you instill it?

Marriage is not choosing your wife. It is choosing your wife every day.

By marrying your wife, you made an active choice. But you must keep making that same active choice every day for the rest of your life (or your spouse’s life). If you live in a loveless marriage, it doesn’t matter that you chose your wife on your wedding day. You are not choosing her now.

If you let your eyes wander to other women, it doesn’t matter that you chose your wife on your wedding day. You are not choosing her now.

Samson was one of the first superheroes.

Possessed of both wit and strength, he confounded his enemies with riddles and performed super-human feats of violence.

He fought against brutal oppression. Yet, how did the people he protected treat him? With gratitude?

Lol no. Samson killed a lion with his bare hands.

He killed thirty men at one time by himself. Then he burned the grain fields of the Philistines and struck them hip and thigh with a great blow.

Then he killed another 1000 men. In response, the Philistines raided the land of Judah.

Dorothy Sayers was known as one of the "Queens of Crime" in the golden age of detective fiction.

She counted C.S. Lewis and other Inklings among her friends.

And in 1941, she wrote a book called "Mind of the Maker" that will completely change the way you look at art. Besides being a novelist, Sayers was also a playwright, poet, and translator. She was well-suited to comment on writing as art, as well as the nature of language.

Mix in her theology of the Christian Trinity, and you get an explosive work.

She starts with the Image of God.

To be an effeminate man is to be an evil man. All men have *some* effeminacy to root out. But how do you recognize it in yourself?

Look at masculine traits, then contrast.

Here are 33 proverbs:

1. The masculine man embraces responsibility. The effeminate man blames others. 2. The masculine man loves his wife. The effeminate man is jealous of his wife.

3. The masculine man does great work no matter how he feels. The effeminate man creates excuses.

4. The masculine man is disciplined. The effeminate man hopes to get lucky.

Vetting a man for marriage.

8 questions to ask (and what to teach your daughter to ask).

1. Does he have a mission?

Does he have a plan for his life, or is he just going through the motions? A mission can change, even several times, but he should always have one. Don't overlook someone just because he hasn't accomplished much yet. He might have just stumbled upon his mission.

But you're looking for a man who is on the way up and has some good momentum.

He'll be looking for a helpmate, even if he doesn't know it yet.